Articles by Mike Murphy

The Boland Trane Co. will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2010. As the company celebrates, so too will Vern Hruska, the company’s first service technician. Aside from the fact that the 88-year-old Hruska plans to be there, what makes him so special? Very likely, party planners will have to pull him off a jobsite when the party begins.

The theme of the 2009 Annual Fall Conference meeting of the Heating, Airconditioning and Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) association was Turning Up the Heat on Recovery: Education/Leadership/Technology. Attendees were encouraged to invest in themselves and their companies, as they shared best practices and new ideas.

It does not matter what line of work you may have come from, from where you might have gained your experience, but it is a virtual guarantee that somebody in your organization cares about the difference between features and benefits. If they didn’t, you probably wouldn’t be bringing down a paycheck.

Everyone expects the
price of HCFC refrigerants to be going up in the near future. Why else would
industrious entrepreneurs in Miami attempt to hoard a little bit extra for some
of their closest friends?

Mr. Pete Williams e-mailed The NEWS recently to complain about an article in our Oct. 12 issue. I often call such fans of the magazine. The conversation with Williams spurred a few ideas, which are now shared with you.

The Sunshine State saw approximately 500 members of the Mechanical Service Contractors of America (MSCA) descend upon the Hyatt Coconut Point Resort for the association’s 24th Annual Educational Conference. Owners and managers came to discuss the construction and building service and maintenance industry.

In the middle of a balmy September, 14 engineers and contractors sat in the boardroom comfort of the Greenheck Learning Center - in the parking lot outside the offices of Air Control Products Inc., a manufacturer rep firm in Broadview Heights, Ohio.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Energy Star benchmarking program is making energy audits much more attractive, less time consuming, and what is even more important - an effective selling tool. If an HVAC contractor wanted to get into the energy audit business, the EPA Website might be a good place to start.